The National Partnership for Environmental Technology Education, ME, in partnership with the Hazardous Materials Training and Research Institute, IA, submits this proposal on behalf of the Community College Consortium for Health and Safety Training (CCCHST) to provide convenient, memorable, and cost-effective training for hazardous materials and waste workers engaged in waste treatment, storage and disposal, hazardous waste generation, clean up and remedial action, emergency response and hazardous materials transportation. CCCHST membership consists of community colleges partnered with business and industry, universities, and community-based organizations offering a consistent and quality response to the national training need for hazardous waste workers and emergency response personnel. The goal of CCCHST is to make NIEHS-approved worker training nationally available through over 100 CCCHST organizations, whose instructors are prepared through a Train-the- Trainer model program, offering hazardous materials instruction in nearly all states of the nation. CCCHST instructors, prepared and supported by PETE and HMTRI, will annually train a minimum 30,000 students, workers, and supervisors to protect themselves and their communities from exposure to hazardous materials encountered during hazardous waste site cleanup, Brownfields redevelopment, transportation of hazardous materials, and response to spills and releases of hazardous materials, offering a minimum 300,000 contact hours of instruction each year. New to the grant cycle 2015-20, PETE will add two new missions to its core Train-the-Trainer model program. (1) Veterans Haz Mat Worker Training. PETE will add a direct worker training program for Army personnel transitioning to the public sector. Annually, 200 US Army personnel leaving the service from Fort Riley (KS), Fort Leonard Wood (MO), Joint Base Lewis-McChord (WA), Fort Sill (OK), Fort Carson (CO) will participate in 76 hours of training, leading to certificates in 40-hr HazWoper, 26-hr OSHA 2015 Haz Mat, and OSHA 10-hr General Industry. (2) Haz Mat Disaster Preparedness Training Program providing a six-day Haz Mat Disaster Preparedness Train-the-Trainer program for 20 instructors annually, and in subsequent years, a two-day Refresher for trainers who serve a wide variety of students. They include BPSOS instructors teaching Vietnamese in the disaster-prone areas of the Gulf; CERT High School and AmeriCorps instructors preparing disadvantaged alternative high school students and CCCHST instructors who teach our first responders and industrial workers.
Issues like climate change are driving the world to be better prepared for natural disasters while the world's terrorist organizations continue to grow and threaten other religions and governments. The threat of natural and terrorist disasters exacerbates the need to be better prepared to prevent and/or respond to hazardous materials incidents. CCCHST has been continuously supported by NIEHS since 1992 to promote worker health and safety and the maintenance of a clean and safe environment through education and training, preparing over 30,000 students and workers in 2014, one-fifth of the total number of students/workers trained by all NIEHS awardees.
